Total positivity in loop groups. I: Whirls and curls (Q436235)

In this paper the authors completely describe the totally nonnegative part of the polynomial loop group \(GL_n(\mathbb{R}[t,t^{-1}])\) and totally nonnegative points which are not totally positive for the formal loop group \(GL_n(\mathbb{R}((t)))\). The paper also provides a connection between these objects and cylindric networks, in particular, it is shown that an element \(X\in GL_n(\mathbb{R}[t,t^{-1}])\) is totally nonnegative if and only if it is ``realizable'' by a weighted directed acyclic network on a cylinder. In this realization, minors of \(X\) can be interpreted using uncrossed families of paths on the cylinder. To do the above, the authors introduce special generators, which they call whirls and curls, and describe commutation relations between them. The authors solve a certain factorization problem in this setting and also define and study infinite products of whirls and curls, in particular, showing that these form semigroups which are closed under multiplication by Chevalley generators on one side. Another interesting technical tool developed in the paper is a theory of tableaux for a Hopf algebra, which the authors call loop symmetric functions.